Customer Reviews

The Weapon Shops of Isher

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

In "The Weapon Shops of Isher", AE van Vogt deals with libertarian philosophy that is best summarized by the slogan he attributes to the weapon shops, "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free". Unlike what many potential readers might imagine, this is not a manifesto for the National Rifle Association. It's a much more soft pedalled carefully considered cautionary tale that is a warning to citizens to be sure they retain the ability to limit the potential power of any government regardless of the form it might take.

Time travel, immortality, the limitation of government power, corruption, invisibility, loyalty, naivete, love, courage, freedom, rebellion, powerful weaponry - all these themes and more are touched on in what many people call a fine example of the golden age of science fiction. But - and I'm willing to admit that perhaps the shortcoming is my own - I frankly failed to understand the charm and I didn't really catch the message. It bothers me to no end when I get to the end of a story and my sole reaction is "Huh ... what just happened?"

Certainly I understood the basic themes but I felt that van Vogt missed the mark. The story line was difficult to follow and consisted of a hodge-podge of disconnected outrageous scientific conjectures, stilted dialogue far worse than sub-title translations of Japanese B-movies, blinding plot jumps and the use of plot devices that seemed arbitrary and pointless (Hedrock's immortality and a gambler with luck that defies all imagination, for example).

In "Voyage of the Space Beagle", van Vogt wrote a series of stories that were clearly the predecessors of today's much loved Star Trek series. As a fan of classic science fiction, a lover of Star Trek in all its incarnations and a reader who has enjoyed van Vogt's other works, I wanted very much to like "The Weapon Shops of Isher". A cynical world-weary friend of mine put it well, "Vast ideas, but only half-vast execution!" Four stars for the ideas, two stars for the writing and the story to support it - call it three stars and suggest that this is a book which would be enjoyed only by hard core classic sci-fi lovers.

Paul Weiss

I have read practically everyone in sci-fi and to me, there are a few standouts, like: Robert Heinlen, Andre Norton, Murray Leinster, and A.E. Van Vogt. This is a great story if you appreciate early sci-fi circa 1951. I would also suggest his book, "War Against The Rull". If you are going to look for this book, "Weapon Shops of Isher", try to get the Ace Double-D version with Murray Leinster's "Gateway To Elsewhere" included. A two books in one issue. Pretty rare and you'll pay for it.

Sounds like a blurb from the NRA, but in fact this slogan is one of the lynch-pins of one of the most complicated and headlong adventures that van Vogt (often called the master of the re-complicated story) ever wrote.

The Weapon Shops, like many of his stories, was actually written and published as several stories before being collected and somewhat edited into book form. In this case, the major portions were published as "The Seesaw" (Astounding, July 1941), "The Weapon Shop" (Astounding, Dec 1942), and "The Weapon Shops of Isher (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Feb. 1949). It is important to note the age of these stories, written as they were during the so-called `Golden Age' of science fiction, when ideas were far more important than character or great prose style. This book is absolutely replete with ideas, but the prose, dialogue, and character development certainly leave something to be desired when compared to modern novels. While reading this book you need to let the story line and ideas overwhelm you, and ignore some of the more blatant excesses in writing style.

It starts with a Weapon Shop magically appearing in a 1950 neighborhood. When a policeman attempts to open its door, he finds it locked - but when a newspaperman tries it just a minute later, it opens - and the newspaperman finds himself in the Isher Empire, which has been around for 4700 years, and where the Weapon Shops effectively form the `opposition' to this government. This is plot thread number one. The second thread is that of a young man wishing to leave his provincial village and make his fortune in the big city - where he finds that he is a `callidetic giant', able to beat any game of chance, and ends up amassing a fortune so large that he can upset the economic stability of the Empire. Thread three involves the world's only immortal, Robert Hedrock, who was instrumental in establishing both the Empire and the Weapon Shops, the first to provide a stable form of government, the second to ensure that the Empire can neither stagnate nor become an unopposed dictatorship. Stir in invisibility, time travel, and the secret of faster-than-light propulsion and you have an explosive mix that will keep you turning pages as fast as you can (and don't you dare think about the plausibility of any of this!).

I think I first read this book around 1960, when I was about twelve, and many of the images of this book made a large impression on me: the casinos and their very futuristic gambling machines, the giant computer that kept track of all the vital statistics of every person in the solar system, the idea of waging war by shifting in time, the `brothels' of the day, even the `energy weapons' that the Weapon Shops sold. Reading it today, these same items still fascinate - and the ending is still an explosive bang.

The thematic point of the right to have weapons strong enough to protect the individual from any government excesses is a major one, and certainly was very topical when it was written at the height of WWII. However, this point is not examined very closely for its downside, because in the story such weapons could `sense' whether or not the person purchasing it had the appropriate mental outlook - an easy way out of the problems seen by today's society with too many weapons freely available to almost anyone.

This is possibly his strongest novel, certainly at least as good as his Slan and The World of Null-A, as here all the various ideas and plot threads do seem to come together in a cohesive whole, something that could not be said about a lot of his works. And it is a pell-mell, head-over-heels, fun and fascinating read.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

This book and its sequel "The Weapon Makers",together make up one of the best old sci fi series. It's astonishingly inventive, especially politically. The tale is smoother and better told than some of van Vogt's work- on the whole, I'd say that only "The War Against the Rull" comapres to it. It's only weakness is that it is a bit old fashioned - this was written before the computer revolution. But it still is creative technologically.

There is a clever, multi-layered idea behind this book. Both the Empire that rules the galaxy and the Weapon Shops that oppose it are the creations of a single immortal being. This is not a page-one sort of statement, you have to read your way through the marvels of the weapon shops, the glitterbling of the casino, the allure of the brothels and the omniscient computers that run the show.
At the time of the narration, the Empire is 4700 years old: there's a lot of stability in this revolutionary battle. What happens to the reader is that as the political tension fades, the story of the young, supernaturally lucky young man who leaves the boonies to seek his fortune in the capital comes to the fore.
So this is only partly a story about weapons and freedom. To hear that tale completed, you should readbang BANG: A Novel, another novel that's a little bit about guns and freedom and a lot about a young person finding her way in the world.

A short book in three parts. A mysterious weapon shop appears in the present, and only lets certain people in. One man finds himself in the future. A young man there finds out he has superhuman luck altering powers.

The third section involves a man who has made himself immortal, and is out to save society via his weapon shops and other schemes.

Weapon Shops of Isher : 1 The Seesaw - A. E. van Vogt
Weapon Shops of Isher : 2 The Weapon Shop - A. E. van Vogt
Weapon Shops of Isher : 3 The Weapon Shops of Isher - A. E. van Vogt

Cosmic balance sucks if it is you.

3.5 out of 5

An incontrovertible supply of bang and zap is important.

4 out of 5

Put me in charge, I do old really well.

3.5 out of 5

This starts out promisingly as a story about a shadow government in a totalitarian state. The rebels are fronted by weapon shops because they, like many libertarians today, believe that personal liberty is expressed by by the right to bear arms (ie, the right to defend yourself from criminals, even if they are governments). By the end, however, we have almost no glimpse of the illicit society. A modest look at the totalitarian one. And almost none of the philosophical underpinnings. But that's typical Alfred Elton van Vogt. His works are often vague and mystifying.

Reportedly, van Vogt exploited his dreams for some of his plotting which may explain why this one unfolds in a dreamlike way, morphing from one setting into another, often winding up in fantastical environs. Unfortunately, in this case, the story meanders around the periphery of the conflict between the monarchy and the weapons shops.

Here, like in too many of his stories, van Vogt's characters are blanks without depth or personality. All they do is justify the quotation marks. (The exceptions are van Vogt's supermen, who exude confidence, and his alien creatures, who are generally primitive and animal whatever their technological level.)

Probably because van Vogt wasn't a trained scientist, he blithely took science to the n-th degree -- a million million years into the past, a gigantic floating store, immortals, etc. Such concepts were new and daring when van Vogt began writing.

In the end, like many of his other stories, this one moves quickly. Probably due to his system of stringing together 800-word mini-dramas to form the whole.

I almost never remember a van Vogt plot. But I do remember that is was a good ride. And I'm surprised and delighted that for the fraction of his writing life devoted to the weapon shops, van Vogt spoke libertarian.

This book contains little if any violence but it serves,to remind one and all. of why the second amendment exists, to allow the populace to defend it'self against the G'ovt.

One for the Social Historians to pore over: otherwise, a rollicking yarn, and a worthy addition to reading material for acolytes of the National Rifle Association.